The High Mountains of Portugal
Awards & Recognition
National #1 Toronto Star Bestseller
National #1 The Globe and Mail Bestseller
National #1 National Post Bestseller
National #1 Maclean’s Bestseller
One of Boston Globe’s most anticipated books of 2016
A New York Times Bestseller
An Australian Independent Bookseller Bestseller
#1 on McNally Robinson’s Bestseller List
An ABA Indie Bestseller
A Powell’s Pick for February 2016
Winner of Regina Public Library Book of the Year Award
Winner of City of Saskatoon and Public Library Saskatoon Book Award
Shortlisted for the Edward Stanford Travel Writing Award
Greater Victoria’s Most-Checked-Out Fiction 2016
Cheryl and Henry Kloppenburg Award for Literary Excellence
Rights Sold
Australia: Text (Audio: Bolinda)
Brazil: Alaude
Bulgaria: Ciela
Canada: Knopf / PRH
Canada French: Les Editions XYZ
Catalan: Navona Editorial
China: Crown (Complex)
China: United Sky (Simplified)
Czech: Argo
France: Grasset
Germany: S. Fischer Verlag (Audio: Argon)
Greece: Psichogios Publications
Holland: Prometheus
Indonesia: PT Gramedia Pustaka Utama
Italy: Frassinelli
Korea: Jakkajungsin Publishing Co.
Macedonian: TRI Publishing Centar
Poland: Wydawnictwo Albatros
Portugal: Presenca
Romania: Editura Polirom SA
Russia: Exmo
Serbia: Laguna
Spain: Malpaso
Turkey: Eksik Parca
Ukraine: Old Lion Publishing
UK & Common. ex. AUS& CAN: Canongate
(Large Print: F.A. Thorpe)
US: Spiegel & Grau / PRH
Vietnam: Tre Publishing House
The High Mountains of Portugal
Critical Acclaim for
“Fans of [Life of Pi] will recognize familiar themes from that seafaring phenomenon, but the itinerary is this imaginative new book is entirely fresh… The story that develops remains tinged with sadness, but it gradually inflates with a strange species of mirth. Martel’s writing has never been more charming, a rich mixture of sweetness that’s not cloying and tragedy that’s not melodramatic. When Peter Tovy’s life is finally knitted into the two previous stories, The High Mountains of Portugal attains an altitude from which we can see something quietly miraculous.”
–The Washington Post
“We’re fortunate to have brilliant writers using their fiction to meditate on a paradox we need urgently to consider – the unbridgeable gap and the unbreakable bond between human and animal, our impossible self-alienation from our world. Karen Joy Fowler’s Booker-shortlisted We Are All Completely Beside Ourselves handled the relationship of ape and human realistically, with a powerful sense of the tragic potential. Martel is happier, more easygoing, and his semi-surreal, semi-absurdist mode is well suited to exploring the paradox. The moral and spiritual implications of his tale have, in the end, a quality of haunting tenderness.”
–Ursula K. Leguin, The Guardian
“Grief engenders both emotional and physical exile for the characters in Yann Martel’s fourth novel, told in three intersecting tales spanning nearly a century. A trio of men who have each suffered great losses set out on individual quests to heal their broken hearts – journeys that come together in unexpected ways… The High Mountains of Portugal poses intriguing questions about loss, faith, suffering, and love.”
–Quill & Quire
“His depiction of loss is raw and deeply affecting – but it’s the way in which he contextualises it within formal religion that gives this book an extra dimension. Martel’s writing is enriched and amplified by the abundance and intricacy of his symbology (touching on Job, St Peter, Doubting Thomas and the parables of Jesus) and his probing of religion’s consolations. Martel is not in the business of providing us with answers, but through its odd, fabulous, deliberately oblique stories, his new novel does ask some big questions.”
–The Telegraph (four stars)
“If fans of [Life of Pi] have been feeling deprived, they will be happy to know [The High Mountains of Portugal] deals in many of the same fundamental questions of life, love, family and faith… [An] extravagant smorgasbord of a novel…at every turn Martel’s deft observations and quiet compassion for human suffering shine through.”
–The Saturday Paper
“Martel continues his quirky romance with ideas, using three interlocking novellas to chew over religious revelation, human mortality, and interspecies communication, among other notions… [He] maintains his fascination with the porous borders between homo sapiens and other species… and [packs] his inventive novel with beguiling ideas. What connects an inept curator to a haunted pathologist to a smitten politician across more than 75 years is the author’s ability to conjure up something uncanny at the end.”
–The Boston Globe
“I took away indelible images from High Mountains, enchanting and disturbing at the same time: the motorcar hitting obstacle after obstacle as it gradually, comically falls to pieces (as does its driver), or the ape as he swings his way across the rooftops of a Portuguese village. As whimsical as Martel's magic realism can be, grief informs every step of the book's three journeys. In the course of the novel we burrow ever further into the heart of an ape, pure and threatening at once, our precursor, ourselves. You must change your life.”
–NPR
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“Martel, it is now clear, has a singular voice and his own obsessions. His fans will want to stick around for the ride.”
–Winnipeg Free Press
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“A remarkable novel.”
–Maclean’s
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“Refreshing, surprising and filled with sparkling moments of humor and insight.”
–The Dallas Morning News
“The prose is sharp, comical, and carries a deeply poignant message: though religion may be one person’s belief structure and another’s laughing stock, it is important to humanity.”
–The List
“In The High Mountains of Portugal, as in Life of Pi, [Martel] reveals the thin shell of civilization that covers the beast beneath, and shows how swiftly trauma and pain can make us revert to our animal selves.”
–Chatelaine
“An enthralling novel that weaves storytelling with the wisdom and heart that made…Life of Pi an international bestseller.”
–The UC Observer
“The rhythm of the book was just beautiful. For me, Yann Martel is the literary equivalent of listening to your favourite singer sing the alphabet. I would happily read anything he wrote.”
–The Daily Review
“Just as ambitious, just as clever, just as existential and spiritual [as Life of Pi]…a book that rewards your attention, giving you much more to think about than most other novels you might read…an excellent book club choice.”
–The San Francisco Chronicle
“Written with nuanced beauty; not for nothing has Martel established himself as our premier writer of animal-based fiction.”
–The Toronto Star
“An Iberian rhinoceros, two chimpanzees, three dead wives, and two dead toddlers all figure in this highly imaginative novel. Martel’s narrative wizardry connects three novellas set seven decades apart in the eponymous region of Portugal. In the first section, titled “Homeless” and set in 1904, Tomás Lobo, a young resident of Lisbon whose wife and son have died, begins to walk backward “to face the uncertainty of the future,” since everything he cherished in life has been taken away. Though he has lost his religious faith, he vows to find a “strange and marvelous” crucifix that resembles a chimpanzee in a church in the tiny village of Tuizelo. His quest goes awry in highly comic ways: an episode that finds him naked in a meadow rubbing lice powder over his body rivals the hilarious meerkat scene in Martel’s Life of Pi. Characters from Tuizelo figure in the second section, “Homeward,” set in 1938. A pathologist receives a visit from his dead wife and later discovers a dead chimpanzee curled in the body of a man on whom he does an autopsy. Martel handles this improbable scene with convincing magical realism. “Home,” the third section, is set in 1981 Canada, where a politician mourning his dead wife impulsively buys a chimpanzee called Odo and travels to Tuizelo, where he was born. His grief is assuaged and his faith is restored by the ancient crucifix and the simple pleasures of country life. Martel is in a class by himself in acknowledging the tragic vicissitudes of life while celebrating wildly ridiculous contretemps that bring levity to the mystery of existence.”
- Publisher’s Weekly (starred review)
“With its intricately woven layers of meaning and all the pleasures and surprises of a good yarn, it is also a beautiful, tender, clear-eyed and heartfelt exploration of love, suffering, faith and evolution. By turns funny, tragic and sublime, The High Mountains of Portugal reminds us that it is our ability to weave remarkable stories out of our spiritual and philosophical concerns that makes us — and keeps us — human.”
–Roodepoort Record
“Martel’s narrative of men driven to adventurous lives by love and death strikes at something ancient and instinctual. After all, grief, mortality and mountains also figure in one of humanity’s oldest tales, “The Epic of Gilgamesh,” in which the title character undertakes his quest after the death of his beloved friend. There are other ancient influences at work here too, notably the biblical story of Job. These structural overtones add richness to Martel’s novel, and so does his voluminous research, deployed (as in his best-known work, “Life of Pi”) among a wide range of subjects.”
–The New York Times
“There’s also a deftness of phrase to Martel’s work that leads to a rich and layered reading experience. He tosses off exquisitely constructed sentences that are beautifully descriptive while also seeming just the slightest bit off-kilter… That ever-so-slight loss of equilibrium results in prose that occasionally baffles, but delightfully so. At its heart, “The High Mountains of Portugal” is a narrative built upon our inherent need to discover outside explanations for our inner existences. Martel’s world is one where the inexplicable need never be truly explained, where all quests are one quest. Any meanings we uncover regarding life and love might be our own, but our connections can be – and often are - universal.”
–The Maine Edge
“If the very prospect of an opportunity to renew your acquaintance with this sublimely gifted and playfully inventive novelist doesn’t fill you to the brim with unrelenting joy then I can only guess that you’ve never read one of his books before. Expect surreal, magical, confusing, poetic, perfectly crafted prose where narrative and style appear to interweave as easily and satisfactorily as the story’s strands and characters do themselves. An absolute joy to read.”
–Dan Lewis, World Travel Guide
“The High Mountains of Portugal is quirky. Nothing about its characters or plot is expected or ordinary. There is a special strangeness, an other-worldliness, about these stories; they are mythic, magical. Martel writes gorgeous prose, and even if he is telling you the fantastic and you don’t know where he is taking you, reading him is worth every minute.”
–Steamboat Today
“The High Mountains of Portugal is a wonderful book, and much more accessible than Life of Pi—and still full of magic and feeling. This will no doubt make its way onto school texts lists in the years to come. . . . Touching, funny, and insightful this is a beautiful book that is well worth reading.”
–Well of Lost Plots
“A book of great wisdom and beauty: playful and profound, wry and enigmatic, it had me utterly enthralled.”
–Gavin Francis, author of Empire Antarctica: Ice, Silence & Emperor Penguins
“His third novel follows three stories and three eras… all tied together by an author at the top of his game.”
–Le Nouvelliste
“In The High Mountains of Portugal, Yann Martel poses two fundamental questions: what do we gain from having faith and what does humanity lose when we refuse its existence? […] the Canadian author offers a reflection on the nature of man, religion, animal symbolism and death. Certainly not themes that form a recipe for guaranteed success.”
–Huffington Post Quebec
“Put some faith in Yann Martel and, like a mysterious mountain-bound mystic, he will unveil a bigger world. His literature combs through the hair of the divine, liberating some of the most beautiful ideas and contradictions that inhabit human heads. But while heady and enlightening, his writing avoids being overbearing. There is much to recommend his new novel, “The High Mountains of Portugal,” and it’s not difficult to climb immediately into Martel’s crow’s nest and enjoy the view… With the simplest gestures, as basic as having a man walk backward, Martel can pose deeply complex questions about what it means to be human. It also accomplishes an unimposing, accessible language that (despite its cosmically intense subject matter) is riveting even for non-scholars. The mountain is high, it’s vantage point beautiful and vast. But it isn’t a difficult climb to enjoy.”
–Austin American-Statesman
“Martel's work is a bit like the ocean on a nice day. The surface of his prose presents a calm and glistening exterior, allowing gentle waves to tickle your toes and often make you laugh. But there is a lot going on beneath the surface. The High Mountains of Portugal is a delightful and enlivening experience. Its very strangeness makes the world feel more comfortable.”
–The Sydney Morning Herald
“The story that develops remains tinged with sadness, but it gradually inflates with a strange species of mirth. Martel's writing has never been more charming, a rich mixture of sweetness that's not cloying and tragedy that's not melodramatic. When Peter Tovy's life is finally knitted into the two previous stories, "The High Mountains of Portugal" attains an altitude from which we can see something quietly miraculous.”
–Daily Democrat
“The High Mountains of Portugal doesn’t disappoint in its twists and turns, which leave the reader working like a detective to connect all the dots. Filled with humor, sadness, love and adventure, it’s a perfect balance for those who want a feel-good book that still provides an insight into the human psyche.”
–BookPage
“If you’re a fan of the fantastic and like to unpick philosophical puzzles about man’s relationship with religion and animals…then you should find this entertaining and, quite possibly, moving.”
–Listener
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“The High Mountains of Portugal is a deftly crafted and rewarding read.”
–The Ottawa Citizen
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“A fine home, and story, in which to find oneself.”
–Minneapolis Star Tribune
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“There’s no denying the simple pleasures to be had in The High Mountains of Portugal.”
–Chicago Tribune
“Once again, Martel plumbs the relationship between storytelling and truth and mixes tragedy with healthy doses of humor. . . . [R]emarkable. This puzzle of a story woke me up in the middle of the night, and I’ve been turning over aspects of it for days.”
–LitChat
“[A]nother golden read. . . . Just like Life of Pi, this book will pull you into all kinds of unexpected territory, making your heart beat a little stranger with every page.”
–Bustle
“The novel, divided into three parts, focuses on faith, mourning, and the void left by the passing of a loved one, and the ways we try to overcome grief.”
–Plus on est de fous, plus on lit! - CBC - Radio-Canada
“…Yann Martel is back with a new novel, The High Mountains of Portugal, which draws on his favourite themes of faith, grief, travel, and love. […] Yann Martel once again has created a fascinating and mythical world in this well-crafted and captivating novel.”
–Les libraires
“This allegorical tale drives home the ephemeral nature of beauty and joy and the thin line we all walk between normalcy and madness, especially in the wake of loss.”
–Booklist
“Martel knows his strengths: passages about the chimpanzee and his owner brim irresistibly with affection and attentiveness.”
–The New Yorker
“Gleefully bizarre, genuinely thrilling and entirely heartbreaking… While The High Mountains of Portugal is an exuberantly narrative novel, it is even more so a contemplative, philosophical one… The book’s prose [reminds] us of how subtle and elegant a craftsman Martel is. (Writers of such capacious imagination rarely get enough credit for their sheer abilities as makers and manipulators of sentences; it’s always easier to notice the clever new shape of something than the construction of it.)…
It is a testament to the book's ambition, and Martel's novelistic abilities, that this evolution seeks to better the reader while also denying him or her any comprehensive sense of resolution – it refuses to conflate maturity with certitude, and in a sense insists on ambiguity. High Mountains resists the reader at every turn in the most pleasing way possible: it does not seek to offer you absolute truth, though it contains much wisdom; instead, it seeks to evade you, and in doing so deepens your sense of its mysteries, and the mysteries of the world we share with it.
While reading, I thought often of those startling works of architecture that seem to destroy physics, the buildings that make complete sense when you look at them despite the fact that you could never explain how they're able to stand up. The ones that defy logic and seem to float on faith.
Or, to borrow another metaphor, it's as though the book is a piece of music, a big one with themes and leitmotifs and choruses echoing and layering to produce a symphonic grandeur that is deeply experiential, both of the moment and above it.”
–The Globe and Mail
“An eight-character tweet on Yann Martel’s new book of fiction, The High Mountains Of Portugal, would quite simply be: Read it… This, then, is the book’s underlying lesson: Humans, when faced with loneliness, or an even deeper alienation (as in the Life Of Pi) or abject need (as in We Ate The Children Last) could well find the animal within, but that’s not all. Love, deliverance and joy are lessons that humans could well learn from another sentient species.”
–Livemint
“In his latest book, The High Mountains of Portugal, New York Times best-selling author Yann Martel is like a skilled dancer. He leads readers with a strong hand, gliding them through the landscape of his imagination, page by page. The book achieves what he describes as the goal of fiction: ‘to go beyond the facts...to a greater subjective truth,’ and to reach our ‘empathetic imagination.’”
–National Observer
“The final result is a meditation on grieving and faith that makes for Man Booker Prize winner Martel’s most satisfying book since Life of Pi.”
–Christian Science Monitor
“Ultimately, each story is a journey into the heart, and a meditation on how that journey might heal the wounds of grief and doubt.”
–Fredericksburg.com
“The latest work by Life of Pi author Yann Martel is a wonderful testament to the joys of… slowing down and emotionally opening up to another’s story. The High Mountains of Portugal, published just last month, is a profoundly human novel in its deep and quiet optimism. Its characters search for meaning in a landscape drenched in sunshine and populated by small towns.”
–Daily Review
“This is literature, after all: it’s intellectual and challenging in places, and, like his other works, it can abound with pleasures, scattered throughout the various layers of its meaning, if only one is willing to put in the effort… Verdict: Five Stars”
–The Upcoming
“Such is the beauty of Yann Martel's The High Mountains of Portugal, the sort of book with which you'll want to spend hours and hours, soaking up every moment, every oddity, every word.”
–Everyday Ebook
“As with "The Life of Pi," few things are what they seem in this sometimes grim and sometimes whimsical tale. My favorite part was an unexpected lecture on the miracles of Christ that I still can’t quit thinking about. "The High Mountains of Portugal" is a charming and thought provoking novel that I hope finds a wide audience.”
–The Ticket
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